Most congested roads in San Antonio

TxDOT released their second annual list of the 100 most congested roadway segments in the state.  Last year’s list inexplicably missed US 281 north of Loop 1604, but not this year.  However, it still wasn’t tops in Bexar County.  Loop 1604 West, from Bandera to Culebra, ranked #1 in Bexar County and #23 in the state with 945,701 annual hours of delay, or about 197,000 hours per mile, costing commuters $20.6 million.  A rush hour trip on that section of 1604 took 51% longer than an off-peak trip, according to the data.

Second in Bexar County was the infamous stretch of US 281 from Loop 1604 to the Comal County line.  It ranked 38th statewide with 1.2 million hours of annual delay costing commuters $25.7 million.  These numbers are larger than those for 1604, but because the congestion levels drop-off substantially north of Marshall, that only worked-out to about 150,000 hours of delay per mile for the entire segment, which was the metric on which the rankings were based.  US 281 also had a lower ratio of peak-period to off-peak congestion: a rush hour journey only took 33% longer.  There are two ways to interpret that stat: either rush hour traffic isn’t really bad, or even non-rush hour traffic is pretty lousy.  I think we all know which of those two applies to 281.

Bexar County had 11 segments on this year’s list (state rankings in parenthesis):

• 1 (23): Loop 1604, Bandera to Culebra
• 2 (38): US 281, Loop 1604 to Comal County Line
• 3 (48): I-35, US 281 to US 90
• 4 (49): I-35, Loop 1604 to Guadalupe County Line
• 5 (50): Culebra Rd., Loop 410 to Grissom
• 6 (56): Wurzbach Rd., NW Military to Loop 410
• 7 (62): I-35 North, Loop 410 to Loop 1604
• 8 (75): Castroville Rd., SW 19th to SH 151
• 9 (81): Fredericksburg Rd., Woodlawn to Loop 410
• 10 (94): Loop 410 North, I-35 to US 281
• 11 (96): Basse Rd./Nacogdoches Rd., US 281 to Naco-Perrin

Some on the list are surprising, such as Castroville Rd.  But overall, this list is probably more spot-on than last year’s.  This is probably because TxDOT used a new methodology this year to compile the list.  You can read all the gory details about their process here.

Bexar County ranked third in the number of segments on the list after Harris (35) and Dallas (24) Counties.  However, the DFW Metroplex had 37 roadways on the list, and the Austin area tied with San Antonio with 11.

You can see the entire list here:
http://www.txdot.gov/news/038-2010.htm

San Antonio Express-News story:
MySanAntonio.com – S.A. traffic could be worse — no, really